I made a batch of an Amber based on a recipe that Bill posted (Rail Ale). This is the second time that I have used this grain bill, but I have used different yeast and hop schedules.

The first time I used WLP008 and this time I am using CL-50. What an amazing difference in color! The WLP008 was much darker (on the dark end of the scale) and now the CL-50 is almost too light. To remedy this I am thinking about krausening this batch with Malta Goya.

What is the formula for figuring how much wort to add to prime 5 gallons of beer?

I know nothin' about this thread. I'm just worried about Steinhauer's name on the last 9 of 10 posts. Is the lack of warm weather getting to you bud? Not that I would blame you a bit....... Cheers, tim

I believe krausening refers to adding actively fermenting wort to a batch during the batch's fermentaion. Priming with wort is usually called priming with gyle, not krausening....I think.LIfe begins at 60...1.060, that is.

Denny is right. IIRC, kraeusening is adding high kraeusen fermenting beer (5-15%, Noonan) to a nearly finished batch. Its done by the big breweries to speed maturation and also for carbonation. I did it to 2 batches of lager last year. Just a qt per carboy added a day or two after racking to secondary. Did not intend it to carbonate though, just help finish fermentation. It can also help get rid of diacetyl. Charlie P. says that adding saved, unfermented wort, or gyle to the finished beer to prime is also called kraeusening.

I agree with Chumley the difference looks big. Provided the cell density in the liquid is not in play (high cell density will make the beer look lighter due to the shorter path of light reflection) - isn't the more likely explanation some inconsistency in the ingredients, measurements or something like that? or mislabeling of malts?

It isn't the first time I've heard of colour problems beeing due to mislabeled grains? Was the grains from the same lot as in the other brew?

I haven't heard of any mechanism for this colour reduction before, I could certainly buy *some* difference, cider and wine makers has reported that the strain does make a slight difference in colour in wines, but this difference looks too big for beeing likely due to the strain? I suppose you could imagine the yeast absorbing the colour pigments for some reason. But I'd expect any slight colour differences to be measurable but not striking??

Has anyone else noticed the difference in the trub in the two pictures? It looks like the lighter fermenter is 50% trub!

Could there have been some issue with mashing or grinding that caused this? This is wild speculation, but if you used grain from the bottom of the bag that was already ground into dust by the action of carrying the bag around, that might form doughballs in the mash. The inside of the doughballs might be dry, so you would get really poor mash efficiency, explaining the color difference. At the same time, some of the grain dust might get into the boil, and then settle out as trub in the fermenter.

Like I said, this is wild speculation and probably not correct, but I wanted to throw the idea out there.

This was the first time I could really look at the picture on a good monitor; my computer at home has a really dark picture. The two samples aren't as far off as they appear. The sample on the right has some yeast in suspension and the sample on the left is crystal clear. The sample on the left is darker but not as dark as it appears on the picture.

The ingredients were all measured by LHBS owner who is very meticulous about measurements. The crystal 40 and 120 were placed in separate bags and neither looked out of proportion.

At first I felt the color was a little light so I figured priming the beer with darker wort would be a good solution that would be measurable and reproducible. Now the color has grown on me and I think I will just leave it as is.